


Long-distance charges

by reckingstacks



Series: Lost In Transit [3]
Category: Neoscum (Podcast)
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Gen, Identity Issues, Late Night Conversations, Nonbinary Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-27 18:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19386745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reckingstacks/pseuds/reckingstacks
Summary: "I found out what happened to me. All that stuff I couldn't remember. What they did with me."Some things can't wait for face-to-face meetings.





	Long-distance charges

**Author's Note:**

> WELCOME to Lost In Transit part 3, AKA the canon-amended version of things that have been knocking around in my drafts for weeks, as seems to be the case with a lot of these fics. This one will be a TWO-PARTER, with the second chapter coming... whenever the current arc wraps up and our heroes(?) get the hell out of dodge. In the mean time: enjoy.
> 
> (don't question the fourteen hours thing. it's 2077. PLANES ARE FAST)
> 
> Soundtrack: [Tell You - June LaLonde](https://junelalonde.bandcamp.com/track/tell-you)

It is 3:07 AM and your AR feed is blaring.

You shut the damn thing off at night. You make exceptions for a select few, but the list is short; the experience of being awoken by an alarm ringing in your own head veers too close to experiences you'd rather forget. Kaveh. Iloya. They've both been there for you in the past, when you've woken them at the most inconvenient hours, and you'd do the same for them in a heartbeat.

And then there's Zenith.

You almost didn’t add hir to the list; this relative stranger, this wildcard who could flip your comfortable life on its head with one wrong move. But you did. Maybe a part of you _really_ wants to know the dirt on Legacy. Maybe you don’t want to be left hanging if things take a dire turn. Whatever the reason, the point is: you did it. You added hir to the exception list.

So you're awake, initially frozen in place by the screaming of the dial tone in your skull as your eyes snap open to pitch black darkness, expecting a cacophony of voices and boots on tile floor and the sound of ammo clips clicking into place. When none of it comes, you refocus your attention on your AR feed. Someone's calling you. Zenith is calling you.

You sit bolt upright, and had you been more alert, less startled by being woken up so abruptly, you might have considered the call more carefully. But you're not. You don’t. You pick up.

"Zenith?"

"Aubrey."

"What are you doing?" It's a struggle to hide the rising panic in your voice. "I said-- We said-- What are you calling me for?"

"I found them. Or I found... something." You can hear hir breathing on the other end of the line. Not panting, but unsteady nonetheless.

"And you're calling me? When they're right there? Great! Great job! Thanks for--"

"Will you just _stop_ for a second?" Hir unexpectedly harsh tone stuns you into silence. "Sorry, I just--I need to--"

Ze pauses again. Breathes in deep, exhales hard.

"I found out what happened to me. All that stuff I couldn't remember. What they did with me." Your heart plunges into your stomach.

"You--It’s been _fourteen hours!_ "

"Ten tours," ze continues, either not hearing or ignoring you. "I started when I was eight. Finished when I was twenty. I wasn't--" Ze stops for several seconds, only starting again when you're on the brink of asking if ze's okay. "They 'decommissioned' me then. They said I was... soft. Weak. Had--had post-traumatic stress. So they wiped my mind clean and carted me off to Seattle. But they--lost me, or something, and--I was never supposed to remember anything. It's a mistake. A bug."

By this point, you have your knees drawn up to your chest; one arm wrapped tight around them, the hand of the other resting on your head. You feel sick. You might _be_ sick. You wonder if this would have been easier if you'd been there--if you'd come clean about this in Utah.

"I'm sorry, Zenith." It's all you can say. You're at a loss. “Are you--are you okay? Are you with someone?” 

"Yeah, yeah. Pox is just around the corner.” A loud sniffle. “Did you know anything about this?"

You hesitate before answering. Dodge the question, maybe.

"I thought it was kind of obvious that I knew what they made us do."

"But did you _know?_ That this is what they do with people like me?"

No. No chance. Your stomach is churning and tying itself into knots.

"Yeah." You nod, despite being alone in the room. "Yeah, I--I did. And I should have said something. I'm sorry."

"Why? Why didn't you?" You want to answer, but the words stick in your throat, and before you can dislodge them, you hear a deep breath and a heavy sigh. "No, don't, I... Never mind. I get it. I get it. I don't think it would have made much of a difference anyway."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay. It's... it’s okay." It's not okay, but you'll be here all night if you keep insisting as much. "I'm just... I don't know. They--Twenty years. They took twenty years from me, and then threw me away when I wasn't useful anymore."

"I know. I know." You're putting on your best Kaveh voice and hoping it's enough, because you’re two-and-a-half thousand miles away and you don’t know what to do. "This is what they _do._ They're fucking monsters."

"I feel like my whole life has been fake. Like, who even am I? Is that me? The person who spent twelve years running around shooting people for someone's private army?"

"That's not you. That's who they tried to force you to be."

"Then what about now?" Zenith's voice rises, cracking ever so slightly. It’s like salt in an open wound. "They set me up in Seattle. They got me into the pro gaming scene--DragonStorm? The thing I play _all the time?_ They made it up. They put that in my head for me. What about everything else? What else did they write into my mind?" Ze stops, and for a moment, you just hear ragged breathing. "I don't know. I don't know what's real and what's not."

You swallow thickly. You know this feeling _so well_ that tears are prickling at the backs of your eyes.

"I--I know. I know. I know what it feels like."

"No, you don’t. You _chose_ what you did after you got away. You didn't have it scripted out for you."

"Yeah, and what did they leave me with? Seventeen years being manipulated by them, and who was I at the end of it? You know I’ve been doing for the last _six?_ I've been--I’m just walking around, picking bits off of other people and tacking them onto myself and hoping nobody notices there's nothing underneath, because they never teach you how to _be a person_. They took away my ability to know what's real or not, too. They took away my ability to live without second-guessing myself all the time just like they took yours."

Your outburst shocks you just as much as it shocks Zenith, and for a minute, there's just silence. Did you fuck up? You _definitely_ fucked up, but Zenith hasn't hung up on you yet, and you're scared that the second you try to cobble together an apology, ze'll cut the call, and then--

"Fine. Yeah. I guess we are in the same boat."

"Maybe not the same boat," you concede. "But drifting down the same shitty creek, sure." You hear what might be a laugh, if you stretch the definition a bit. "Zenith?"

"What?"

"They're not coming after you, right? They're not--They won't track me down?" It's a selfish preoccupation, but one that’ll eat away at you in the back of your mind until it’s answered.

"No... no. I don’t think they can do that. They don’t even _know_ about you. I don’t know what’s going on in there, but I think the person I spoke to was wired into the system. It seemed like they had to stick to a script. They told me where I have to go if I want any more information."

"So? Where?"

A laugh. A real one, if a little hollow.

"Of all the places in the world: Los Angeles."

"You're kidding me."

"Nope. So, I guess I've been headed in the right direction this whole time. I have no idea what I'm meant to be looking for once I get there, but I'll figure it out."

"It's _LA._ They probably have a huge corporate base there somewhere."

"Probably. They... told me I could look where I was raised, too."

"Where _were_ you raised?"

"Buri Ram. It’s in Thailand."

“Jesus. You’re a long way from home.”

"Yeah. Why they decided to ship me as far away as Seattle is beyond me.” You’re pretty sure it’s not, but let’s not chase that rabbit down the hole any further than necessary. “What about you?" ze asks, after a moment. "Where'd you grow up?"

"Does it matter?"

"No. I'm just asking."

You flip back and forth on whether or not you want to answer before caving in.

"Canada. Saskatchewan."

"I was deployed in Canada, once."

"Why would they send troops all the way from Thailand when they had us ready to go right on their doorstep?"

"I don't know. Why do they raise kids on battlefields and then expect us not to be traumatised by it?"

"...Touché." You sink back against the pillows behind you, pulling a hand through your hair. "Do you... think you'll go? To Thailand, I mean." To you, it sounds like a bad idea. A trap. This all feels too convenient, too easy. That, in turn, could just be the paranoia talking. Your differing circumstances might be clouding your judgement.

"I don't know. Maybe. It depends what I find in LA, I guess." Ze stops, but you feel like there's more to it, and your instincts prove you right a moment later. "They... they told me my dad's name."

Your stomach drops. That jealousy is back, like you felt before, in the hotel room, except this is a jealousy you were never prepared for; one you never knew existed until this moment. It coils inside you like a snake, all too ready to start spitting venom if you don't quell it.

"And?" You manage to swallow back the spite, glad, for a minute, that Zenith isn't in the room to see your hands clench into fists. "Did you look him up or something?"

"No. I haven’t had time. This just happened, and we have a lot going on right now. Things are kind of all over the place."

The jealousy snake unwinds itself a little. The worry snake coils in its place. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

"Right now? In the sense that there’s no active threat to our lives, yes. We're just in a... precarious situation in New Mexico."

"Isn't that place fucking crazy? Super high-tech but they won't let anyone else get a look in? What’s it like?"

"Fucking crazy is pretty accurate, I think. I probably shouldn't tell you exactly where we are, but the place is really flashy. Ostentatious. Goes up two miles into the sky, fanciest consumer tech you’ve ever seen, full of people dressed up like total douchebags. They have their own _currency._ Figures that Legacy of Adam--Sons of Adam, whatever--would set up shop somewhere like this. We're stuck here 'til we... _fulfill the requisites_ of the invitations that got us in in the first place, though. Look, don't worry about it."

"That sounds like something you'd say if I should be worrying about it."

"Just don't, okay?" Ze's insistent, but you can hear laughter behind hir words despite it. "Everything is alright, nobody's dying. We're doing just fine. Forget I said anything."

"Sure. Let's talk some more about your daddy issues."

"I would prefer if you _didn't_ make it sound super gross." (You scoff.)

"You didn't look him up yet. Are you going to?"

"...Maybe. It feels like such a big step. It's just--It's weird, you know? Thinking about it. _Having_ a dad."

"You’ve never thought about it before?"

"I mean, sometimes, yeah, but now it feels _real_. Y’know, funnily enough, most shadowrunners don't tend to be forthcoming about family stuff, if they still have family to talk about. With this crew--I mean, you know the deal with Pox's dad. Dak's and Tech's parents are all dead. It helps, in a way, 'cause it makes it feel more. Y’know. Normal. We’re all pretty fucked up. But I guess now… Maybe he's out there, somewhere. I don't know. Maybe I don't _want_ to know, but I think I need to."

"You ever wonder what it’s like?" you ask, quietly, after a brief lull. "Just... having a family. What it's like growing up _normal_. Being a kid. Living in, like, _a house,_ with a mom, or a dad, or whatever. Getting to live like that."

"I don't know. I don't even remember being a kid. It's all white noise."

"You don't even see yourself?"

"No. Or, I didn’t, until I started having flashbacks."

"They really take _everything?_ "

"Yeah. Everything." In that moment, you feel as though you’ve gained some understanding of Zenith's frustration with being unable to remember, and hir obsession with breaking into that vault of locked-up memories. Just barely, but more than before. If most of your life was one huge, gaping void, you'd probably get curious, too.

"I... I hope you find out, one way or the other. About your dad. I hope he turns out to be a better parent than anyone who actually raised us." Given the circumstances, you have your doubts--hell, you have your doubts about whether the man’s still _breathing_ \--but you don’t voice them. The jealousy snake is writhing in your guts again, and you don’t need it trying to strike out at an inopportune moment if you decide to dig any deeper into this particular topic. "So, ten tours, failed memory wipe, Los Angeles, Buri Ram, dad. Is that everything?"

"...Yeah," ze replies, as you take a second to mute the call on your end and take a few swigs from the bottle of water at your bedside. "That's about it."

"I mean, if nothing else... you wanted answers, and it sounds like you _got_ answers." You lean back against the headboard, brow furrowing, your mind drifting back to coffee on the balcony. _God._ How fast things change. "You see what I meant, though," you add, quietly. "About finding out some difficult things."

"Yeah. You were right. I mean, I knew, but it still..."

"Still hurts. I know." You barely notice your fingers curling around the sheets beneath you. "You can brace yourself all you want, but you still never know how hard the blow is going to be until it hits."

"Right." You can see hir in your mind's eye, dragging a hand down hir face, or running it back through hir hair. A silence, not entirely uncomfortable, hangs between you for a short moment before ze speaks again. "Where are you right now?"

The question makes your stomach lurch. You let it sit for a minute, toying with it in your mind, reasoning with yourself.

"Maine," you reply, eventually. "I'm in Maine."

“At home?”

“Yeah.”

"How was your flight?"

"It fucking sucked. There was a kid crying and I had a headache the whole time."

"Because of the kid?" 

"No, but it didn't help." There’s another brief silence. You’re still surprised at how easy it feels, given the circumstances. "Zenith?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you okay?" you ask, your voice coming naturally soft. "Like... _really_ okay.”

"I... I don't know. Kind of." Zenith breathes in deep. "This is just--it's a lot, you know? I'm--" Ze stops, the words audibly catching in hir throat as hir voice wavers. "I'm scared. That’s it. I’m scared. This felt like a pipe dream for so long, but this is--I can't go back anymore, even if I hate what I find. This is it. The door’s open, and I can’t close it."

"Obviously, you’re scared. This _is_ scary. It’d be weird if you weren’t. But… you’ll be okay. I know you will." You draw your arms around yourself, like it might transmit the sensation across the thousands of miles separating you. "You have people to look after you. People who love you. Just remember to… _let them_ look after you. And I know this shit fucking sucks, but you’ve been through worse. If nothing else… it’s closure, right?"

“I hope so.”

“It will be.” And it’s going to be closure for _them,_ too, in the most final sense of the word. 

The briefest of thoughts flashes through your mind: that if Zenith can’t finish the job, then you’ll go out and do it yourself. It scares you. You bury it as quickly as it surfaced.

"Hey, it’s… it’s late. It sounds like you’ve had a long day. I think you should get some rest.”

“I know. Fuck, what time is it in Maine? Like, 2, 3 AM? Sorry for waking you up.”

You laugh. "It’s fine. I’ve done this to other people often enough that it’s about time I get a taste of what it’s like.”

"You make a habit of calling people in the middle of the night?"

"Not a _habit,_ but it’s happened more times than it probably should've." 

“That sounds like a habit.”

“Fine, if you wanna call it that.” You roll your eyes, thinking back to all the nights being scooped up into friends’ cars and subsequently spent crying into cheap coffee at the nearest drive-thru, or evading sleep watching obscure 40s anime until you passed out at sunrise. The memories would almost be nostalgic, if the circumstances weren’t so fucking miserable. “C’mon, you should go. You need to sleep.”

“Right. Yeah.” Zenith exhales heavily. “Sorry I broke that no-contact rule so fast.”

A slight smile pulls at your lips. “It’s okay. I think this qualifies as an important development. You should… keep me in the loop. Let me know what happens.”

“So you’re okay with messages? Calls?”

“...I guess, yeah.” Breathe in deep, exhale slowly. “If you got that close, and they didn’t try anything, then maybe--maybe it’s safe. For now, at least. I want to know that you’re okay.”

“Okay. Yeah. I’ll let you know if anything big happens.”

“Good. Stay safe. Make it out of New Mexico alive for me. I want to hear about all the freaky shit that goes on in there.”

“I’ll do my best. And don’t worry, I’m _definitely_ gonna have stories by the time we leave.” You can _hear_ hir smiling, and it puts a smile on your face, too. “I’ll… talk to you soon, okay?”

“Yeah. Talk to you soon.” A heavy lump forms in your throat, and you nearly choke on it. You’re tired; ze’s tired; you’re both in need of rest, and there’s nothing gained by sacrificing it to drag this call out any longer than necessary. That isn’t making the prospect of hanging up any easier.

“Night, Aubrey. And… thanks. For answering. And listening.”

“It’s okay. You know where I am, if you need me.”

“Yeah. I got it.”

“Okay. Goodnight, Zenith.”

The little call monitor in the corner of your AR feed blinks out, and the rest of the display with it, leaving your vision clear again. You only realise now, as all of it slides out of your body at once, how tense you were for the entire call. The tears are back, welling in your right eye and absent but stinging all the same in the left. There’s no single reason why. Because you wish you could do more. Because you should have explained last night, or this morning. Because you’re scared, too.

You can’t dwell on this. It’ll drive you crazy. You drop your legs from your chest and wipe the tears away, sinking back under the sheets even though you know you won’t get a wink of sleep for the rest of the night. You’ll just be waiting for that AR feed to come to life again.

(Or, alternatively, praying that it won’t. You don’t know which you'd prefer, at this point.)

Somewhere, across the country, two figures begin their heavy-hearted walk home down the artificially low-lit Fyre Tower streets.


End file.
